There was a thread a few days ago on the F-16 XL Scamp, the cranked arrow delta wing version of the Viper or Fighting Falcon. That inspired me to dig into my closet “boneyard” or private AMARC to see if I could find the two that I built in 1983. Well, I did find them slightly worse for wear. The white on the fin had turned an ugly yellowish brown and a few parts had fallen off. I used the Monogram 1/72 single seat kit for both, with the two seat conversion parts from a Testor’s/Italeri kit on the second. The dark gray wing top on #1 is FS36118, the top front is FS36270 and bottom is FS36375. #2 is FS36270 on the wing top and FS36375 on the wing bottom and fuse top front. Insignia red, white and blue were used on the fuselage top
The first flight of the single seater serial # 75749 was July 3, 1982, from Carswell AFB, TX. which is also the home for the General Dynamics manufacturing plant. Company test pilot Jim McKinney made the 63 minute flight and achieved a speed of .9 Mach and an altitude of 30,000 feet with the Pratt & Whitney F100-PW-200 powered aircraft. He carried one AIM-9L Sidewinder on each wing tip and 4 AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles semi-buried in conformal wells near the wing roots.
The two seater serial # 75747 made its first flight nearly 4 months later on October 29, 1982, from the same facility. Jim McKinney was in the back seat this time with fellow test pilot Alex Wolfe in the front seat. They went up to the same 30,000 ft altitude but went a little faster at 1.4 Mach. The aircraft was powered by a General Electric F101 DFE engine and carried the same six air to air missiles
Nice job on those kits. You’d never know they were sitting in your boneyard at all.
Why did these never see large scale production for real? Was there a drawback to the design? Or was it that the Electric Jet was fine as it was and there was no interest in this design?
They were competing against the F-15E for that mission. Had they gone into service they would have been F-16E and F-16F. I still think the AF should have gotten these too. I’ve got an “F-16G” (Since the new Block 60s are now called F-16E/Fs) on the bench about 90% construction complete.
The Air Force was looking for a new Advanced Fighter Bomber. McDonnell Douglas took a B model F-15 company demonstrator that they used for all the "what if " experiments and turned it into the prototype F-15E. General Dynamics took a pair of F-16s and did some huge modifications to them to turn them into the XLs. If I remember correctly, that was a major point as to why the AF chose the Eagle. The mods to the 16 were just too extensive. And of course, as usual, politics had a lot to do with it also. Mc D at that time had much stronger congressmen and lobbyists than GD did.
Darwin, O.F. [alien]
its a shame these never went into production especially since the XL carried more bombs than the F-15E and the F-16 at that time was an already proven mud mover which is what it was designed for A-r to Air and Air to Ground close air support.
